Hurricane Katrina may be the most
memorable storm in New Orleans history,
but its trajectory across the PelicanState
was far from unique. Louisiana
was
hit by 49 of the 273 hurricanes that made landfall on the AmericanAtlanticCoast
between 1851 and
2004.In addition, eighteen of the
ninety-two major hurricanes with Saffir-Simpson ratings of category 3
or above
have struck the state (U.S. mainland
hurricane strikes by state, 1851-2004).On
average, one major storm crosses within 100 nautical
miles of New Orleans
every decade
(King, 2006).

Hurricane intensity is measured by the
Saffir-Simpson scale,
which uses wind speed, storm surge, and barometric pressure.Standard pressure is 1013.2 millibars
(Swanson,
2004).The storm surge, the result of
the wind-whipped water, is the most dangerous of these elements in
terms of
potential loss of life (Fitzpatrick 17).Combined
with the astronomical (normal) tide and other
factors, the
storm surge produces a hurricane storm tide that can be 15 feet or more
above
the normal tide level.The waves
superimposed on this tide are also a huge threat because the repeated
pounding
can destroy most structures.Keep in
mind that a cubic yard of water weighs approximately 1700 tons, which
exerts a
huge amount of pressure on any structure in its path (Storm Surge).In addition, assuming all factors are equal,
doubling the height of a wave increases the energy by a factor of four
(Zebrowski, 2005).This creates a recipe
for disaster for any coastal city not prepared to hold up in a
hurricane.

Hurricanes have been a part of New Orleans
history since the city was
settled in the early 18th century by the French
(Fitzpatrick, 1999).With an average
elevation of 1.8 meters (6
feet) below sea level, New Orleans is a shallow depression ringed by
levees and
thus vulnerable to massive flooding because there is nowhere for
floodwaters to
go (Yamazaki, 2002).A storm surge from
a slow-moving Category 3, 4, or 5 storm can reach 30 feet (Fitzpatrick,
1999).
This can create problems because the pumps designed to pump out the
city can
not work when they are completely submerged.Jefferson
and Orleans
parishes ranked first and second among communities receiving repeat
payments
for damage claims between 1978 and 1995 under the National Flood
Insurance
Program.These two parishes alone
accounted for twenty percent of the properties with repeat losses.They had an average of nearly three claims
per property for a total of $308 million (New Orleans Hurricane Risk).

Some people have called Katrina the “most
anticipated
natural disaster in modern American history.” Even before the storm,
the
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) listed a hurricane strike in
New Orleans as one of the direst
threats to the nation, on
par with a large California
earthquake or a
terrorist attack on New York
City
(Bourne).New
Orleans history offers its own perspective,
including
the four most destructive storms of the twentieth century: the
Hurricane of
1947, Betsy, Camille, and Georges (Yamazaki, 2002).

The Hurricane of 1947 made landfall near the
ChandeleurIslands
of Louisiana
on September 19th.Wind gusts
of 112 miles per hour and a central pressure of 967 millibars (mb) were
measured at what is now New
OrleansInternationalAirport,
which was less
than 2 meters (6.5 feet) of water.A
storm surge of 3 meters (9.8 ft.) reached the bayou village of Shell
Beach, which is a 40-minute drive southeast of the city (Yamazaki,
2002).It’s significant to note that old
Shell Beach
now lies beneath five feet of water due to wetlands loss caused by the
Mississippi Gulf River Outlet, which was constructed in 1968 (Bourne).The 1947 Hurricane claimed 51 lives, flooded
Jefferson Parish to a depth of 1 meter (3.28 ft), and caused 100
million
dollars of damage in New
Orleans.Levees
along the south shore of Lake Pontchartrain to protect Orleans
and Jefferson parishes were built in
response
to the destruction.

Hurricane Betsy made landfall on September 10th,
1965 at Grand Isle, Louisiana with a pressure of 948 mb, gusts of 160
miles per
hour (mph), and a forward speed of 22 mph.The
island was completely flooded by the 4.8 m (15.7 ft)
storm surge. Offshore oil rigs, public
utilities, and
commercial boats all suffered severe damage.New Orleans
witnessed gusts of 135 mph, a 3 meter (9.8 ft) storm surge, and the
worst
flooding in decades.Eighty-one people
died, and damage in southeast Louisiana
totaled $1.4 billion.After the
overtopping of the levees, it took nearly eight hours to get the
pumping
systems back to normal (Fitzpatrick, 1999).The
Orleans Levee Board responded by raising the levee
height to 12
feet.

The most significant storm for Mississippi
and Louisiana during the 20th
century was Hurricane Camille, which struck the Mississippi coast on August 17th,
1969 with a small diameter and a forward speed of 14 mph (Yamazaki,
2002).Camille was one of only three
storms to hit
the U.S. mainland
as a
Category 5 during the 20th century, rivaled by Florida’s 1935
Labor Day Hurricane and
Andrew in 1992.The pressure was 901
millibars and the winds were estimated at 175 mph before later data
gave a wind
speed of 201 mph, making it the only 20th century storm to
satisfy
the all the Category 5 criteria at landfall and the catalyst for the
development
of the Saffir-Simpson scale (Yamazaki, 2002).The
record-setting storm surge was officially measured at
24.6 feet
inside a surviving structure, but experts expect that it surpassed 28
feet
(Zebrowski, 2005).The storm then caused
massive flooding and landslides, particularly in the Appalachians, as
it curved
through Tennessee, Kentucky,
and the Virginias.Property damage exceeded 11 billion dollars
($350 million in Louisiana alone)
even though
the storm turned north in time to miss New Orleans (Yamazaki, 2002).

Despite the huge amount of damage caused by
Camille, it
could have been much worse for Louisiana,
especially in Plaquemines Parish (Zebrowski, 2005).At least some of the forecasting and
communication mistakes made during 1957’s Hurricane Audrey were
corrected
before the Category 5 hurricane hit in a similar area.Several hundred thousand people would have
been trapped and the death toll could have reached the tens of
thousands if
similar errors had been made (Zebrowski, 2005).Many
people evacuated before the NationalHurricaneCenter
issued the
warning.Most people distrusted the NHC
and with good cause.The NHC sent out
the order to evacuate only four hours before the hurricane made
landfall.If the people had waited for the
official
warning, they would have been stuck in traffic on a single lane road.Many people would have been drowned trying to
escape the city (Zebrowski, 2005).However,
things turned out very well.Because of
the success of the evacuation, only seven deaths were directly
attributed to
the hurricane out of the estimated national total of 335 (Zebrowski,
2005).

The southern part of Plaquemines Parish was
transformed into
a lagoon approximately twenty miles long and a half mile wide by
Camille’s
rainfall and numerous levee failures (Zebrowski, 2005).Barely any homes remained and only a few
large buildings were intact under the 1.4 trillion cubic feet of water.This made communication rather difficult, so
very few people outside of Louisiana
know about the extent of the damage here (Zebrowski, 2005).

The estimated death toll of 335 is actually
quite low given
Camille’s severity.Further analysis
reveals that a coordinated evacuation warning and effort was the
determining
factor.There were no deaths among the
thousands of offshore oil workers because they had completely evacuated.In Plaquemines Parish one in twenty-five
hundred people died because the city was almost completely empty.Despite the near-total destruction on the
Mississippi Gulf Coast, the evacuation of over eighty-five thousand
people and
the impressive storm preparation steps resulted in a death rate of less
than
one person in seven hundred.The only area with a catastrophic death rate
(more than one fatality per hundred residents) was NelsonCounty,
Virginia,
where
no evacuation warning was
possible (Zebrowski, 2005).

The mortality rates offer a clear
correlation between the
level of preparation and the human cost of such a disaster.Smooth mass evacuations in Mississippi and
Plaquemines Parish overcame
long-standing racial tensions.Communities
came together in immediate recovery efforts.Residents
and local politicians overcame their distrust of
the federal
government because they did not have the resources to rebuild on their
own (Zebrowski,
2005).

The greatest lesson of Camille is that even
extremely
violent storms do not need to result in catastrophic loss of life and
the
disintegration of social structure.The
people affected never forgot Camille, but the nation as a whole allowed
the
memory of the destruction, the importance of efficient preparation, and
the
cohesive recovery methods fade into the background.The immediate response to Katrina was slow,
uncoordinated, and inadequate (Zebrowski, 2005).Will
the same mistake be repeated if the
lessons of Katrina also go unlearned?

Two final storms worth mentioning are
Hurricanes Georges and
Ivan, which both exposed the vulnerabilities of New Orleans.Georges
inflicted extensive damage on numerous Caribbean
islands before
making landfall near Biloxi,
Mississippi on
September 28, 1998
with a maximum sustained surface wind of 104 mph and a central pressure
of 964
mb.The maximum storm surge in Louisiana was 2.7 m (8.9 ft) at Point à
la Hache, which severely
eroded the ChandeleurIslands, the first line of storm surge
defense for
southeast Louisiana and southern Mississippi.Four hundred sixty people died; however, none
of these people were in Louisiana.

The flooding for Georges was actually a full
category higher
than its category 2-3 intensity on the Saffir-Simpson scale because it
was such
a slow-moving storm.The hurricane
actually shifted to the east and missed New Orleans, but the evacuation
raised major concerns. Theft and vandalism
occurred when
approximately 14,000 people poured into the Superdome when it was
functioning as
a shelter.Georges also led to more
attempts to improve the levees along the canals connecting the city to Lake Pontchartrain (New Orleans Hurricane Risk).

Hurricane Ivan exposed major evacuation
issues as more than
a million people tried to leave the greater New Orleans area on Tuesday September
14,
2004, creating a traffic jam worse than the traffic when people
evacuated for
Georges. The state police enacted
contraflow
traffic patterns in the afternoon, but the 60 miles between New Orleans and Baton Rouge
was a seven hour ordeal (New Orleans Hurricane Risk).

Overall, in order to better prepare for the
future, we have
no better source than the past.Hurricanes
have hit before, exposing weaknesses in the
plans that formed
by the government in the years past.This
time, we have to opportunity to prevent this sort of
destruction
from happening ever again.We can not
let the people in this country forget the lessons of the past.